


Cadetship Calamity

by AMournfulHowlInTheNight



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Crack, Final Fantasy VII Remake Spoilers, Gen, Spoilers, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMournfulHowlInTheNight/pseuds/AMournfulHowlInTheNight
Summary: Cadet Strife was an unmitigated nightmare of the likes which had never graced Shinra's doorstep either before or after his employment. Sephiroth couldn't shake the overwhelming sensation that Strife was perhaps a little too knowledgeable about the company's inner workings for a cadet only a week into his employment with the company.
Comments: 352
Kudos: 1977





	1. Novus Actus Interveniens

Cloud, at the tender age of ten, wasn’t quite sure what was going on inside this bright green pit of light. He’d slipped off the mountain and then he was… here, wherever here was at the moment. Not that he had to spend it alone. An older blond man with spiky hair was sneering at someone who looked suspiciously like General Sephiroth. If General Sephiroth had rapidly aged for no reason and developed an attitude problem borrowed straight from Midgar’s resident rock scene.

“No.” Spiky sliced his hand through the air. “We’re not doing this again.”

“But Cloud-” Sephiroth’s lookalike was insisting. Not quite begging. More like Cloud himself when his mother put her foot down on having another sweet.

“No buts! How many times has this happened and none of us got what we wanted?” Spiky was demanding. How many times had what happened? Sounded like bad news.

The lookalike frowned. “Last time was so much closer to an ideal outcome.” Last time with what? 

“Killing everyone on the planet because your mother didn’t hug you enough is not an ideal outcome,” Spiky barked. Okay, that really didn’t sound good. “Of all the people to kill when you snapped, why couldn’t you have waited until Shinra had their next executive meeting? All of your life’s problems would’ve been gone in ten seconds of effort and restraint. But you just couldn’t wait.” When had this happened? It wasn’t in any news Cloud had heard about and he knew just about everything about Sephiroth. Not that he'd ever tell anyone.

The lookalike sighed theatrically. “Ten seconds, Cloud? Do you really think I would need such a long period of time to sluice through them?”

“I don’t know, it took you another five years to finally get around to killing the old bastard who ran the place. Consistently. Every single time we’ve rehashed this,” Spiky spat through gritted teeth. “That’s it. Change of plans. Oi, you!”

Cloud jumped and the blond with glowing eyes stared directly at him. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Spiky grunted. “Do you wanna kick this guy’s ass?” Spiky gestured over his shoulder at the sulking Sephiroth lookalike. 

Cloud bit his lip. “Why?” Why would anyone want to attack Sephiroth?

“So you can go back to Tifa and the rest of her punk friends and tell them how you suplexed General Sephiroth through his desk,” Spiky nodded sharply. “Why be in SOLDIER when you can beat the shit out of the best of them?”

Cloud took precisely seven seconds to contemplate the sheer awesomeness of that statement. “Why are we suplexing him?” Cloud asked, watching the Sephiroth lookalike fold his arms and frown.

“Because none of his idiot friends will before they skip off to have existential crises, leaving him to go completely insane on his own.” Spiky pumped a fist. “We’re suplexing him for his own good and for the good of his future outcomes.” Right. If Spiky said so.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have had you kill the Arbiters,” Sephiroth’s lookalike muttered with what might’ve been concern. “I wasn’t expecting this to happen.”

Cloud glanced between them, feeling more than slightly out of his depth. “So… we’re doing this to help him?” Cloud pointed at the lookalike who was now examining a gloved hand in disinterest.

“Yeah, something like that.” Spiky shrugged earnestly. “Him and a lot of other people. There are times where people need a good ass kicking to get them back on speaking terms with reality.” Weird. Cloud’s mother used to say that about the people around town.

Cloud thought for a moment longer. Spiky seemed genuine enough… if extremely irritable. “Okay. I’ll help.” Even if Cloud didn’t know how exactly he was helping. Spiky looked relieved at any rate.

“I disagree with that assessment,” the lookalike sneered.

“Yeah, well, it’s two against one, you’re overruled. Let’s mosey.”

And Cloud felt himself fade away into a sea of knowledge where Nibelheim burned, a meteor fell from the sky and Shinra’s best and brightest slowly went mad.

_Don’t worry, we’ve got this covered. This time we’ll make sure he torches the right people._

Cloud was missing. Tifa’s heart sped up.

“I saw him go over the edge!” Johnny shouted. Over the edge… where all the mako was in the ravine below. They weren’t meant to go anywhere near the mountain and here they were… with Cloud… Cloud…

“Someone, get help!” Tifa peeked over and… there was no trace of Cloud. Only a rippling pool of glowing green below them. “Oh no no no no, Cloud!” Tifa called out and there was no reply. Nothing but the gentle bubble of the pools… then… movement.

Before her eyes, the mako erupted, a thin arm piercing the surface, latching onto the edge of the pool and wrenching itself out. Another arm followed. Together they held onto the edge and heaved. With a wrench Cloud Strife emerged from the sea of green sputtering, wheezing and hacking out volumes of the poison. Flopping onto the bank like a fish, Cloud gagged and coughed.

Tifa stared. “Cloud?” Or was it a monster that looked like Cloud? Playing tricks of them? But even the monsters didn’t like large amounts of mako… “CLOUD!”

Cloud was still coughing, but he turned to look up and Tifa stared. Stared as glowing eyes gleamed back at her. “Tifa?” He gasped across the gap between them. “What… what happened?”

“Cloud, are you okay!? You fell off the edge!” Tifa yelled back and behind her she could hear the voices and footsteps of the approaching cavalry.

“Tifa,” Cloud slurred, “what year is it?”

And Tifa felt her heart sink as Cloud’s head planted backwards into the moisture logged dirt bank.

Sephiroth wasn’t going to pretend he was excited for the disciplinary action of a cadet a mere week into training. It was never a good sign. It was even less of a good sign when his booted toes crossed the conference room’s threshold to be met with Director Lazard, Genesis, Angeal, Tseng and Third Class Kunsel whose still helmeted face was twisted in a wince. 

Sephiroth briefly entertained turning on his heel and immediately leaving the men to their fate. Instead, withholding a sigh, he took a seat and clasped his hands. No, never a good thing.

“Gentlemen, I was under the impression that this is a disciplinary hearing for one of our cadets,” Sephiroth began. “Is there any particular reason for why there are so many of us present for what is meant to be a single problematic student?” Or, more oddly, why Tseng of the Turks had the exact same facial expression as Kunsel. Or why Angeal, Genesis and Lazard had a similar facial expression. Or why all of them writhed uncomfortably when the question had been asked in all innocence. Sephiroth had the distinct feeling he was missing out on a crucial detail.

“Ah, sir,” Kunsel began, “maybe we should show you the footage first and let you see for yourself. This was recorded in the cadet cafeteria and well…” Kunsel shrugged and obligingly pressed the play button and Sephiroth’s eyes immediately honed in on what should have been the most inconspicuous cadet in the room.

A tiny blond boy in cadet fatigues was shovelling down a prodigious amount of slop. That in and of itself wasn’t remarkably, but the rapidly forming ring of other serious faced cadets snaking around his seat was remarkable. Remarkable enough for Sephiroth to wonder if he’d be writing a condolence letter for the poor boy’s family.

“Oi you, blondie!” The biggest cadet shouted at the boy’s back.

“Who’s the blond cadet?” Sephiroth asked Lazard under his breath.

“Cloud Strife. He’s only fourteen,” Lazard hissed back. Not that it mattered, because the other members of the conference room were fixated with what Sephiroth theorised to be morbid horror. From Sephiroth’s count, it was twelve against one.

Strife, to Sephiroth's very nearly missed dropping of a jaw, carried on completely ignoring the threat.

“Oi, I’m talking to you!” The cadet screamed again, advancing on Strife.

“And? You’ve yet to say anything worth responding to so far. Are you going to tell me why you deserve my attention or are you going to carry on screaming at me like an imbecile?” Strife’s total apathy floored Sephiroth. Numerous emotions were in conflict, before settling on a muted awe.

“I hope this isn’t for a condolence letter,” Sephiroth murmured to the room.

“Oh, just watch,” Genesis was gleefully nodding at the screen.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” The older cadet shrieked, his followers beginning to close ranks.

Strife hadn’t even bothered to turn around. “Not interested in your mental deficiencies, Bryant. Take it up with someone who cares.” And Sephiroth’s awe morphed into a sinking dread. 

“Fuck you, always thinking you’re fucking better than everyone else!” Bryant’s fist flew and all hell broke loose.

Strife casually leaned to the side, sliding from his seat and hooking the leg of Cadet Bryant. Bryant legs were wrenched out from beneath him with a scream and he hit the ground head first. Strife’s booted foot followed Bryant’s skull to the ground with a decisive crunch. Bryant didn’t move again.

Another fist flew. This time Strife’s food tray met the attacker’s face with a solid impact and spray of blood and slop as the other boy’s nose shattered. Staggering backwards, another surged forwards to take his place.

Next, a leg, which Strife casually intercepted and wrenched at an angle that had the entire room grimacing as the snap resonated from the speakers. Its owner could only scream as Strife lifted him by that very same leg, in spite of his size, and hurled him back into the encircling ring of attackers. All of whom failed to duck appropriately as their comrade fell onto them with his full weight.

This time a weapon, a knife which… Strife caught… between two flat palms. That perked Sephiroth’s interest. “Really? A steak knife? What’s wrong with you people?” It was wrestled from the offender’s hands rammed back into the other boy’s shoulder, who likewise fell back with a cry. Brutal.

Another came in swinging and was summarily drop kicked, with Strife landing on his hands and bouncing back to his feet in an acrobatic feat that had Kunsel whistling appreciatively. 

Another with a tray, but Strife gripped him with both arms, bent over backwards and slammed the other boy into Strife’s now unattended dinner. The table buckled and shattered on impact. Sephiroth contemplated the deduction from his budget to replace the table and withheld another sigh.

Three more rushed in to aid their fallen comrades, only for Strife to dive on an unwisely extended arm and flail one whole individual into the remaining two with an absolute minimum of effort. They fell to the ground with a uniform groan.

Of the twelve that had mobilised, only two remained. Two who weren’t daring to approach.

“Please tell me you two are intelligent enough to have gotten the hint,” Strife’s voice betrayed no emotion.

“Yes, yes, we’re good, sorry man!” One of them whimpered and they both fled the room, tripping over their fallen friends as they went out the main doors.

Strife casually stepped over the human and inanimate debris, retrieved another tray, filled it with more gruel and resumed eating at another empty table as if the attack had never happened. The rest of the cafeteria shuffled away from his new location. Then Strife glanced upwards at the camera and Sephiroth glimpsed glowing blue eyes and the video abruptly ended.

Sephiroth blinked and the meeting collectively released a breath. “Gentlemen. What was that?”

Tseng coughed. “It appears that Cadet Strife was the target of hazing, except they bit off rather more than what they could chew.”

There was an understatement if Sephiroth had ever witnessed one. It was more like they’d provoked the resident behemoth going about lunch and been savaged for their efforts. “And have you determined the source of the glowing eyes?”

“He had an accident four years ago near one of Nibelheim’s native mako pools,” Lazard answered. “He was rather upfront during his entry interview about tripping on a trail and falling into a pool.”

Sephiroth blinked slowly. A natural pool… that was practically pure mako. “How is he still alive after being immersed in that much mako?” The mind boggled. Usually those recovered were vegetables provided they were still breathing. Strife was a medical miracle.

“Heh, Hojo wants to know that as well,” Genesis sneered. “Don’t think he’ll get too many voluntary answers from Strife.” The immediate response would’ve been been to chew Strife out for any contact with Hojo. The less immediate response was to wonder how exactly it’d happened when Hojo rarely left his den of depravity.

“He’s been here four days and has already had a run with our illustrious head of science. Why am I not surprised?” Sephiroth wanted to groan with dismay. He truly did. As if he didn’t have enough paperwork. How many complaints were going to be filed for the brawl alone?

Angeal shifted. “It’s more than that, Sephiroth. He ran into Hojo in the corridors and almost tore the professor’s arm clean off when Hojo reached out to stop him from leaving.” While a serious faced person, usually, Angeal was unusually grim. And that meant more paperwork and politics involving people who had little to no acumen with politics. And Strife, while clearly deficient in the socialisation department, didn’t deserve the affliction of a Hojo who’d had his precious ego battered by a small child with a predication for grievous bodily harm with a body.

“You’re leaving out the best part. He threatened to shove it straight back up the good professor if he didn’t “piss off” and mind his own business,” Genesis fairly howled with laughter. “What an inspiration. Fourteen years old and already picking fights with the executives.” Fourteen years old and had already attracted the ire and interest of Hojo of all people.

Sephiroth fought the urge to sink his head into his hands. Why didn’t he refuse? Why didn’t he walk straight back to his office for another coffee? Why? Why did this have to happen not even a week in? Why now when he already had a mountain of logistics paperwork to resolve with the various suppliers?

“And what do you want me to do about it?” Sephiroth asked and the room shuffled uncomfortably. This was Lazard’s area, not his and godforbid company politics if the assault of an executive somehow became an issue. If Strife used ten assailants to wax the cafeteria’s floor without so much of a blink, Sephiroth strongly doubted that he was going to have any sort of valuable impact. Usually the other cadets initiated their own pecking order, but it seemed like Strife thought the very concept itself was beneath him and after that display Sephiroth honestly couldn’t blame him. If one was capable of using a substantial part of their class for janitorial purposes then clearly the class wasn’t worth dealing with in any serious capacity.

“I say give him a medal,” Genesis smirked. He would say that, knowing Strife was going to end up with Hojo’s personal attention for the exemplary act of public service he’d performed for the company. Sephiroth rather more regretted not being there to see it himself. A grown man having his arm snapped by a child. Truly an example for them all.

“He needs to be hidden from Hojo before there’s a retaliation,” Angeal added, glaring at Genesis. Angeal at least was attempting to be responsible even if he was conspicuous in his silence. Obliterating a class worth of fellow students wasn’t the best of first impressions to make and Sephiroth didn’t doubt Angeal having a frosty reception to Strife. Even if Strife’s assailants thoroughly earned what happened to them.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on him for operational reasons,” Tseng offered without a word of useful advice. Ah yes, company speak for “we’ll observe him just in case he attempts to assassinate the president but until then he’s not really our problem”. It was nice of Tseng to be so upfront for once in his career.

“I’d like to be of more assistance, this is unprecedented in our department,” Lazard nodded to Sephiroth. “Strife was defending himself on both occasions, even if the force he’s using is a tad extreme… but at the same time he’s a child and being overly harsh here might cause resentment over a simple misunderstanding.” Which gave Sephiroth precisely zero useful advice for how to deal with Strife. Standard Lazard doublespeak for “sorry, General, you’re on your own, godspeed, the paperwork is up to you” was exactly what Sephiroth didn’t want to hear. Ever. In any capacity for any part of his employment with Shinra.

Kunsel shrugged. “General, I think you need to have a word with the kid. I don’t know what his deal is, but he needs a friendly word of advice before he upsets more than Hojo.” Naturally Kunsel was the only one present who had even a remotely workable suggestion. Yes, Sephiroth was clearly going to have a friendly chat with the cadet, but what on earth was he going to say to the boy? _Cadet Strife, in future if you are to maim the the Head of the Science Department, would you be so kind as to gazette SOLDIER’s main offices with the information so every member can arrange a suitable viewing location for the event? Advance notice of at least one month prior to the event's scheduled occurrence would be greatly appreciated by the Department._ Hmmm, he’d have to be less obvious about it.

Sephiroth stood, doing his best not to weep at the mountain of paperwork slathering, encroaching, slowly consuming his desk inch by inch. “I’ll arrange a meeting with Cadet Strife to pass on advice on how to adequately conduct himself while he maintains employment prospects with us.”

And hopefully, when it went horribly wrong and Strife maimed an instructor for ill advised comments, Sephiroth could bless someone else with the problem. Genesis sounded suspiciously entertained by Strife’s conduct, perhaps he’d like to oversee Strife’s disciplinary action himself since he had so much free time.


	2. Animus Nocendi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strife certainly was connected a great deal of... incidents... within the Shinra building.

Cadet Strife was late. Ten minutes late and Sephiroth had the most unsettling feeling of dread rush through him that he’d had all week. That included Strife’s… disciplinary hearing. It was the sensation that usually foreshadowed run ins with Hojo and and his ilk. A honed instinct, nursed with years of evasion, excuses and reasons for being elsewhere and Sephiroth held onto it with fervour. Avoiding Hojo was a life skill to be treasured and honed. But now… wasn’t the best of timing for the instinct flare into life.

With any luck Cadet Strife had a perfectly reasonable excuse for his tardiness. What possibly could have happened? He was lost? Accosted by upper level secretaries needing coffee (cadets were wont to suffer such a fate)? The Turks ambushed him in an elevator? Really. It was almost a multiple choice answer. What excuse would there be today? An excuse gloriously free of the Science Department.

Then Sephiroth’s office door fairly flew off its hinges and a helmeted Cadet Strife staggered in, dragging… a thing or two… behind him. Sephiroth felt his hopes and dreams fade from existence like a tiny puff of chocobo shaped smoke drifting off into the sky that waved at him as it left.

Squinting closer… were those claw marks on the cadet’s uniform? There was another suspicious patch around the teenager’s gauntlets which appeared to be teeth marks…

“Cadet Strife,” Sephiroth began, attempting to mask the urgency with which he leapt to his feet in a far more graceful and intimating motion that didn’t phase Strife in the slightest. The cadet wasn’t scheduled for any sort of patrol or monster purging exercises, not this early into training when the vast majority of them weren’t sure which end of a sword was the stabby end. Which left…

“Sir, I can provide a reason for my delay!” Cadet Strife gave a form perfect salute that would’ve had the drill sergeants over in the infantry swooning with delight. A cadet that could do that after being maligned by monsters? Star material for the military.

Sephiroth resisted the urge to snort with derision. “Very well, let’s hear it, Cadet.” This had the Science Department written all over it in Hojo’s cramped, noxious handwriting with a cutesy love heart signing off at the end. 

Strife saluted again. “Sir, as I approached your office I was set upon by several monsters of undeterminable origin. Department of Planning secretarial staff were with me in the corridor at the time,” Strife saluted. “In the interest of their safety, I lured the monsters into the men’s bathroom and applied blunt force through improvised means. Subsequently, I forced the monsters down the nearest sewer access point to avoid continued harassment of Shinra civilian staff, sir!” Strife saluted again and Sephiroth carefully rewinded the healthiest amount of plausible deniability seen since Genesis’ last field report near a a theatre (which reported very few monster sightings and contained a rave review of the theatre itself, much to the bemusement of Lazard).

“Cadet Strife,” Sephiroth slowly began, eying the cadet up and down, “you have no weapons on you. How did you subdue the threat?” Without being a made into a fine coat of paint on the rendered walls of the lavatory. The boy had suffered at least one bite and numerous claw marks yet seemed none worse for wear. What hellscape had this boy emerged from to treat an ambush within his workplace so casually?

Strife saluted again. “Sir, I acquired a plunger from a nearby cleaning cart along with a pair of sugar tongs from a passing secretary’s tray!”

“Sugar tongs,” Sephiroth numbly repeated. “Why sugar tongs?”

“Sir! Their skin secreted an abrasive and they left melted imprints of their feet in the floor. I acquired the tongs to limit contact with my skin and clothing and to leverage the monsters!” Leveraged monsters… with… sugar tongs… Right. He could do this, with some effort. It may have been a crisp eight o’clock in the morning before he even made it to his own set of sugar tongs, but he could do it. Sephiroth sank back into his seat. 

Sugar tongs…

“What happened next, Cadet?” If this was Genesis taking the report, he’d have paused midway through for an acquisition of popcorn. If this was the quality of the reports Angeal and Genesis had to receive from Third Class Fair, then Sephiroth would have to make a silent apology for ever faulting them for the practice. Perhaps a whole bottle of whiskey to go with the experience.

“After I positioned them into the bathroom with the sugar tongs, I used a soap dispenser to cave in their skulls. This wasn’t fully effective though, sir, so I took precautionary measures.” What had escaped Hojo’s lab for skull crushing not to be an effective method of stopping them? “Utilising the plunger and sugar tongs, I deposited three of the monsters into urinals and assisted them in fitting fully into the fixtures. After the commencement of crushing motions, I flushed vigorously to dispose of the threat, sir.” 

Sephiroth opened his mouth but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead he gazed over Strife’s shoulder, which in hindsight, had he examined more closely the first time, he would have seen a clawed, purple arm still hanging off the boy’s pauldron. Followed by a similar limb still gripped to the cadet’s boot. Both of which were missing fingers.

Sephiroth blinked. “And the parts you didn’t dispose of, Cadet?”

“As soon as this meeting concludes, sir,” Strife offered and jumped slightly, as though he’d forgotten about the existence of his newfound accessories.

Drumming his fingers on the table, Sephiroth would've liked for a divine favour from above to grant him time to stall and have a coffee of his own before his world caved in on itself at such tender hours of the morning. Coffee… sugar tongs…

“Cadet… what happened to the sugar tongs, plunger and soap dispenser?” They would have to be incinerated lest some hapless soul come upon them and melt their hands off.

“I replaced the sugar tongs, soap dispenser and plunger back where they came from before proceeding here, sir!” Strife’s form perfect salute could be used in training videos. Sephiroth couldn’t remember if he knew how to salute let alone carry it out so flawlessly.

“And the secretary for that department, Cadet Strife?” If Strife sent those mangled, contaminated tongs to the wrong department…

“Science, sir! The order was a black coffee with four spoons of cream and three sugars on the side!” Strife had better not think that Sephiroth missed that perky bounce that had been missing from the other salutes. What did Strife know about those tongs?…

Then Sephiroth blinked. A slow, deliberate motion as his brain made links between the order, the department and the irreparably defiled sugar tongs that should have been incinerated for the sake of humanity’s continued existence. An order that sounded… suspiciously… like the resident Head of Science’s coffee order… Sephiroth exhaled with relief. “Oh, that’s acceptable then, Cadet.”

“Thank you, sir,” Strife bounced yet again. “Is there anything else we have to discuss, sir?”

Sephiroth was going to answer Strife, he really was, but then he heard his stack of paperwork moan, saw it teeter towards the edge of the desk and reconsidered the action. He wasn’t qualified to be giving Strife social or political advice. If he was in Strife’s position he would’ve killed his attackers and set Hojo on fire along with the rest of the department. No… he needed someone with a more political and personable touch for these sort of matters.

“Cadet, I’m going to assign you a mentor to help you with these… difficulties you’ve been experiencing throughout your first week.” Tactful, to the point, not accusing. 

For the first time, Strife seemed to be at a loss. “A mentor, sir?”

“Yes, I have a short list of candidates.” No he didn’t, but he’d have to invent one rapidly after he sent Strife for a truly unholy amount of coffee.

“Oh… that’s… great, sir.” Strife was biting his lower lip and Sephiroth was sure the rest of his face was in just as much of a state of consternation.

“Genesis is not on the list, Cadet.” 

“Thank god for that.” Sephiroth smoothly struck out any prospect of Genesis being involved in anything to do with Cloud Strife and felt his respect for the Cadet soar.

“But after assaulting a Head of Department, some effort must be made to punish you.”

Strife nodded rather candidly.

Inclining his head towards the seething mass of paper and plastic, Sephiroth thought he heard a faint growl echo from the pile. “You will be assisting me with my paperwork for the next six months during your off time. You are to conduct your scheduled exercises then report here to assist with filing.”

Sephiroth wasn’t going to say he was disappointed by Strife’s reaction. Perhaps he’d spent too long around Genesis and expected Strife to dramatically fall to his knees while screaming his denial to the world. No, instead Strife took a step forward, peeked at the forms for logistics and supplies and shrugged. Shrugged at the monstrosity. “It doesn’t look too bad, sir, I’ll see what I can do. Do you need anything now?”

Sephiroth could’ve hugged Strife, disembodied monsters and all as he handed over his coffee order and fairly kicked the boy out of his office.

Sephiroth stuck his head out the door after the retreating Strife and Zack Fair’s spiky hair immediately came into view.

Perfect.

Zack Fair had seen his fair share of weirdos since he’d started at Shinra (hey, they were part of the employment experience, according to the Turks), but this cadet… this cadet was new. This tiny cadet that was way too young to be here at all let alone in that uniform. What, was he, ten, eleven? Zack had been inches away from pulling out his sword and punting those bad boy monsters back into Science’s floors, but nope. That never happened. 

He didn’t have time. 

A tiny savage wielding sugar tongs and a plunger immediately bodied one of the creepy crawlies and dragged it kicking and screaming into the gents. The door slammed behind them and a long, whistling squeal blasted out through the walls, like a sort of inverted horror film. Even the monster’s friends seemed to rethink their life choices… at least for a moment… before they charged in after their fallen brother and… well… The screams, sploshing, clunking, metallic whacks and vigorous flushing spoke for itself at that point. As did the cadet sauntering out, hurling the plunger back into its trolley, the sugar tongs on their tray and… a soap dispenser straight back through the open bathroom door. With monster arms still attached to his boot and pauldron, the cadet slammed an out of order sign across the door and promptly sprinted off in the direction of General Sephiroth’s office. The limbs sadly waggling behind him as he went, almost like they were waving goodbye.

Zack wished he had words. He really really did, but it was what, a week into basic training for the cadets? Not even a week. More like five days. Not even a week in and the kid was already being picked on by some sociopath in the Science Department. Zack couldn’t really fathom what could’ve caused that, because the act of ongoing breathing itself seemed to be irritating the collective whole of the Department. Still, he did have a duty… a duty to warn his superiors that Science was after a cadet… for reasons.

Yeah. He had to tell someone… Even if he wasn’t sure how exactly he was meant to explain this… incident. Genesis would laugh and slam his door in Zack’s face. Angeal… Angeal wouldn’t be thrilled to hear about the cadet’s choice of weapons and would punish him for endangering himself and others. Hmm, that left Sephiroth. General Sephiroth might’ve been a socially awkward homebody, but he wasn’t totally unaware of what was happening within Shinra’s walls. Maybe he’d be more understanding? It’s not like his dislike of Hojo wasn’t legendary within the walls of Shinra, even if Hojo himself was completely oblivious to it.

So Zack did the most righteous thing he could think off and sprinted after the tiny cadet. He skidded into view of Sephiroth’s office just in time to see a hiss of smoke as the cadet shut the door behind him as he entered. 

Shit. Too late.

Which is how Zack got here, waiting anxiously outside General Sephiroth’s office, staring intently at a scorch mark on the door frame that definitely hadn’t been there the last time.

After what felt like a solid two hours of waiting, the door flew open and the cadet sprinted through it, leaving an afterimage behind him. Zack blinked and a silver head of hair peeked out after the cadet’s blur.

“Zack, please come in,” Sephiroth dully intoned and Zack resisted the urge to wince as he made his way through to Sephiroth’s sagging desk. Morning meetings were rough on everyone, let alone a meeting with a cadet still covered in monster soup.

“Uh, sure sir, were you expecting me?” Zack didn’t have a huge amount of experience with Sephiroth. While Angeal and Genesis were off doing their own thing, Sephiroth was usually snowed under a truly phenomenal amount of paperwork. Phenomenal in that it seemed to have its own biome that operated independently from the rest of the building.

“Yes and no,” Sephiroth vaguely mumbled. “After the meeting I just endured, your presence here is timely.” 

“He told you about the sugar tongs, didn’t he?”

Zack knew he struck gold when Sephiroth collapsed into his seat and placed his head into his hands. “Five days, Zack. He’s been here five days and has managed to both obliterate his squad’s cohesion and send Hojo into a frenzy. It must be a world record. Even the Turks are perplexed.”

Zack blinked. “He did what?” Short of getting everyone killed, Zack didn’t know of too many ways to completely destroy your own squad. Usually, one person wasn’t enough of a problem to get a whole squad blown off the face of existence… but if the cadet was new then his training buddies shouldn’t have even seen combat yet. Sounded like a doozy. 

“Cadet Strife is having difficulty making friends with his cohort,” Sephiroth began in the sort of deceptively light voice Zack attributed to the sort of missions that’d cause on the spot resignations. “After an incident of hazing, he proceeded to beat ten of them black and blue in the cadet cafeteria, followed by him successfully hogtying the rest of them in his barracks. He was the only one to make it to training that day, before the supervising sergeant stumbled across his classmates during an investigation into their disappearance.” If there was ever a person who existed with their soul outside of their body, it had to be Sephiroth. Strife was overachieving and not in a way that was usually conductive to any other company’s employment prospects. Though here in SOLDIER, Strife would fit right in with the rest of them.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna be great for making friends.” Depending what the hazing entailed though, it might make Strife a lot of friends in the regular military. No doubt plenty of the SOLDIER rejects there would be cheering on Strife dismantling the top dogs of the class.

“In addition to this… he has made close and immediate friends with Professor Hojo who is rather intrigued by Cadet Strife’s… natural friend making disposition.” Sephiroth’s slow, stilted tones sent chills up Zack’s spine. So the big cheese already knew about Science having a go at the cadet. Fancy that.

“Huh, how did he manage that?” Zack scratched his head. Where would a cadet even see the boffins? 

“Cadet Strife suffered a mako accident in his youth that has granted him qualities similar to those of us within SOLDIER,” Sephiroth… sighed. Zack did a double take. 

“Uh oh.” Maybe it wasn’t too bad?

“Indeed, Zack. It’s made him very popular with Hojo. Especially after Hojo’s attempted examination of him resulted in Strife snapping the good Professor’s arm like an extremely inadequate and malformed twig.”

Nope, that was bad. That was really bad. Absolutely inspired and an example for all of SOLDIER, but also bad. Extremely bad news for the cadet. “That’s… not great, sir.”

“No,” Sephiroth sighed. “No it isn’t. And that’s where you come in. Cadet Strife seems to have… extremely limited social acumen on account of his accident which does not appear to have been treated due to his rural upbringing.” Ouch. That was bad coming from Asocial Man of the Year himself. Zack knew it was bad when Sephiroth dunked on someone else’s social skills, even if he was trying to be nice about it. Points for effort? Still a little bit disturbing to hear it come from him though.

But was Sephiroth asking for what Zack thought he was asking for? Come on!

“Zack, would you be so kind as to ensure that Strife learns how to make friends and…civilly manage any further encounters with the Science Department?”

Zack flew from his chair. “Awww yeah, mentorship time! Angeal’s gonna-”

“-Angeal is going to have an aneurysm,” Sephiroth glumly concluded. “But he’ll have to deal with it. Our Department already has a poor reputation for its cadets going missing and Strife is unfortunately in a rather more dangerous position than most.” Mako enhanced and not by Shinra. Hojo had to be salivating and Zack was all too happy to kick that mouth shut with the firm boot of General Sephiroth’s official order.

“Oh, don’t worry sir, I’ll take care of it.” Zack nodded eagerly. Sure, the kid was covered head to toe in monster guts, was probably really a ten year old and had absolutely no social skills, but that’s why they had mentors, right?

“Thank you, Zack,” and there it was, definitely a sigh of relief. If Zack was anyone else he’d think he could hold this over Sephiroth… but Zack also wasn’t an idiot and quite liked having all of his attached limbs remain attached. Genesis though…

“Uh, sir, one more thing?” Zack almost didn’t think he should say it, but really… Isn’t this what he was here for in the first place? To help the kid out?

“Yes, Zack?” The day had barely gotten started and Sephiroth was ready to clock out for the day. Zack felt that pain.

“There’s absolutely no way in hell that cadet’s fourteen. Have you seen how small he is?” Zack made an appropriate gesture at Cadet Strife’s height level. “He’s gotta be twelve or younger.”

Sephiroth froze, his eyes glazing over. “I’ll… look into it, Zack.” Yeah, sure, hopefully after he got his morning coffee.

“Thanks, sir!” Zack popped a haphazard salute that made Sephiroth twitch and exited with gusto.

Now! To find Cadet Strife and make friends! How exciting!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's all have a moment of silence for Zack.


	3. Ex Parte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When in doubt, deny everything.

“Hi!” Zack wheezed, doubling over as he finally slid to a halt next to Strife at a coffee machine. Strife must’ve had more mako in him than either Angeal or Genesis. Way. Way. Waaaaaaay too much and fast for those tiny chocobo drumsticks that were belting along the floor. It had to be mako, because Strife didn't have the size to have a seven league stride. “What’s your name?” 

Cadet Strife blinked at him with glowing blue eyes. “Cloud Strife, sir!” And saluted briskly even as he dunked a thermometer into the heating milk. Zack felt himself wilt from the force of Cloud’s military precision. Both the salute and the critical eye on the milk temperature. Oh no. He was formal!

Zack frantically waved his hands. “No no no! Can’t have that, Spiky! There’s such a thing as being too formal!” Zack made a frantic crossing motion with both arms. God, the other SOLDIERs and the infantry would eat the poor bird headed kid alive. Formality didn’t last in SOLDIER. Not when Sephiroth’s social skills began and ended at violently skewering monsters on Masamune. The world would end if they made it even more complicated for him. “I’m Zack Fair,” Zack threw out a hand.

Strife gripped it so hard that Zack practically heard his fingers scream in protest before they were released. “Good to meet you, sir, I look forward to working with you!” He saluted again and Zack frantically shook his head.

“Just Zack’s fine, Cloud!” Zack bounced but nothing deterred his mentee from the precision coffee making that was taking place. It was like dealing with Sephiroth, if Sephiroth had been a high end barista belting out consistently made artisan coffee instead of a general. “But I have good news for you! General Sephiroth has appointed me your mentor to help you adjust to life in the cadet program!”

“I greatly appreciate the offer of assistance, sir, but it’s not necessary.” Cloud artfully poured the milk into the foam cup in a flower pattern that reminded Zack vaguely of a girl he’d glimpsed in the slums. “Apologies, sir, I need to run this back to the general so he can fill out today’s section 59s!” And Cloud was gone before Zack could get in another word.

“Hey! I wasn’t done talking yet!” And Zack, still wheezing, could only sprint after him. Zack hadn’t even told him the details about the mentorship yet!

Genesis didn’t have time to reach for Rapier. Nor did he have a spare set of hands to reach for Rapier, though if he'd sprouted a pair they'd have been most welcome. With an armful of precious, first editions, he could only freeze in position as a blue and yellow blur approached at high speed. Pinned between two secretaries repositioning wheeled archives that were floor to ceiling in height, Genesis could only brace himself. A coffee carrying midget travelling at demonic speeds impacted and… Genesis didn’t feel much of anything.

Cadet Strife cartwheeled through the air over the top of Genesis, lightly launching off Genesis’ shoulder with a single hand. Not a single drop of coffee fell. Nay! In defiance of the Goddess herself, it remained stubbornly in place as Strife’s airborne momentum adjusted and he landed with the delicate twist of a gymnast before sprinting off in the direction of Sephiroth’s office.

Still, there was no splash, no droplet, no loss of the brown liquid at all. Strife’s chocobo like gyroscopic grip of the saucer and its payload persisted when he took a corner by leaping of the opposing wall instead of gracing the floor with his presence.

Genesis watched him go, his jaw solidly on the floor. How?

True, Strife’s performance was always going to be in question after the incident they’d caught on camera, but what was Sephiroth thinking to let him loose on the secretarial floors? Had he lost his mind? This was an accident waiting to happen.

Then, he saw another, far larger blur yelling at him and ducked as Third Class Zack Fair whistled over his head in pursuit of the blond.

Genesis would be having words with Sephiroth over this matter, make no mistake. And Angeal if his puppy was involved.

Zack knew he really had to sprint to keep up with Cloud’s drumsticks on a coffee run. But Cloud cartwheeling between two storage containers and across Genesis’ outstretched, LOVELESS filled arms was the sort of death wish only the most senior members of SOLDIER had after years of bureaucracy. Strife was adapting to corporate culture rather rapidly if he deemed Sephiroth having a late coffee to be a worse risk than the imminent demise following spilling anything on Genesis’ books.

“Sorry, sir, coming through, duck!” Zack yelled at the slack jawed Genesis who watched Cloud’s cornering manoeuvre with nothing short of dumbfounded surprise. Zack was far too large to pull of Cloud’s cartwheel trick, so he instead he somersaulted clean over the commander, holding his breath as a boot grazed past one of the first editions.

He wasn’t dying today!

“Sorry sir, I’ll explain later, sir!” Zack hollered over his shoulder and slid around the corner, watching his mentee expertly navigate a dense cluster of secretarial staff that was gossiping near the elevators. At the rate this was going, Zack would be dead of exhaustion before Genesis or Angeal got an explanation for why Zack’s schedule had instantaneously filled in the space of a fraught discussion.

Still running at full pelt, Zack cracked his knuckles and eyed an electrical cable hanging from the ceiling that pathed perfectly to the elevator. Cloud was gonna be his mentee whether he liked it or not.

Rufus Shinra had seen and heard a great deal from within his father’s company. The SOLDIERs, the scientists, the machinery, the materia, the research, he boisterous personalities that commanded operations… and Hojo. There was no whisper he hadn’t heard and no tendril he couldn’t extend to plumb the depths of its secrets… Except… perhaps, this one.

While Rufus had always been prepared for the expedient inheritance of the company, he at least intended to keep the corporate structure intact so he could enter the role informed and unhindered. Unknown enemies were the worst sort of enemies. And while the current executives were… eccentric, they were the evils that he knew and the evils who had kept the company in the superior state it was in today. At least that’s what Rufus had always been led to believe by the Turks. Today’s board meeting was gently disproving that theory.

Certainly, Hojo was an eccentric, but having him abruptly slump onto the table and begin screaming like a little girl following the consumption of a sugar cube was another matter entirely. The Turks certainly hadn’t detected any attempts on the life of the Head of Science prior to Hojo keeling over and being rushed back into his own labs for an emergency stomach pumping. Though from the preliminary reports, with the amount of corrosive the good professor had ingested, he’d be lucky to leave the laboratory with a stomach at all. Not a single soul in the board room was sorry to see him go, with Palmer in particular clinging to his fat infused tea as if his life depended on it and Lazard raising an eyebrow in mild interest. Perhaps Palmer's life did depend on who was making his tea at this point, if utensils were being spiked with unknown chemicals.

What an absolute shame that Hojo hadn’t been able to finish his prolonged and petulant demands for more funding, even though he was still yet to recreate an Ancient who could speak to the Planet and uncover the Promised Land (why they weren’t making use of the Ancient living in the same city as them was another question Hojo couldn’t answer). Rufus would have to ensure that whoever returned Hojo’s tainted sugar tongs were given a sufficiently generous and quiet promotion for dedicated service to the needs of the company. While Rufus’ father wasn’t making any effort to streamline unnecessary spending, it was good to know that a loyal servant of the company was doing their part to save money. 

Instead of the Turks’ theory being continuously proven, Rufus came away from the meeting having watched Hollander practically click his heels together in glee as he nominally took over Hojo’s research until the man had recovered. Rufus would’ve been tempted to assign complicity to Hollander based on the Turks’ model… if Hollander hadn’t just brushed Hojo’s sugar tongs and likewise been stretchered to the same laboratory as Hojo as himself. Clearly Hollander and Hojo were two slices of bread cut from the same mouldy loaf if the Turks’ numbers on the sheer amount of gil they’d both embezzled wasn’t inaccurate. With the indexed and annotated expenses sheet they’d provided Rufus, including Hojo’s… unusual proclivities… with his experiments, he wasn’t inclined towards thinking there was inaccuracy in the numbers.

“Tseng,” Rufus began after they’d left the meeting, “why isn’t the individual responsible for Professor Hojo’s… unexpected medical leave not already on your payroll?” Not only not on the payroll, but why weren’t they a consultant? Nobody had so much as blinked at the “lab contamination accident”. Whoever was responsible had positively inspired work ethic.

“Good question, sir. We have to find them first. It’s been quite some time since anyone made an attempt on Professor Hojo’s life.” Rufus had little doubt that Tseng’s investigation would be as prompt as any investigation into the near death of Hojo was allowed to be, in the sense that any queries to SOLDIER would take months to return to the Department of Administrative Research.

Perhaps it was time for a more thorough corporate review as to why it wasn’t business as usual within the Science Department now that the two main culprits of the Department were indisposed.

Sephiroth replaced his phone back into its cradle and felt what might have been a headache beginning to form. Either that or his previous pulsating headache was in the process of achieving metastability. The number of hours it’d taken to find the woman, then to have an individual with an ounce of intelligence go fetch her to give her own information instead of hearsay about the boy sprouting wings and flying away (Sephiroth knew for a fact that Cadet Strife had hitchhiked his way across two continents and wouldn’t have done so if he could fly. The cadet was far too pragmatic to not make use of extra tools.). Cadet Strife’s social skills were of remarkable aptitude if this sample size was the quality of socialisation he received in his tender years. Quite frankly, that Strife spoke so well for his age was nothing short of divine intervention.

Had Strife been raised by the local population of Nibel Wolves, Sephiroth would’ve had greater confidence in a functioning human being leaving the process. Unfortunately, Strife had been exposed to not only mako, but even worse, a town filled with superstitious and backwards yokels. Yokels who seemed to be under the impression that unsupervised children falling into a mako ravine somehow wasn’t a dereliction of parental care and instead was the fault of Strife for… reasons even Genesis and Angeal couldn’t provide. Shame Strife didn’t do the company a favour and torch the township as he left, if only to prevent more neglected and mako enhanced children crawling from its depths and over to Midgar. Sephiroth was at his wit’s end managing one of them. God help them all if there was more than one.

Even with that being said, Strife’s tender years were technically not yet at an end. Mrs Strife’s blunt account of her son’s ongoing lifespan was… insightful, both into the nature of Strife himself and Nibelheim’s social hierarchy.

Cloud Strife was ten years old. Zack Fair was owed a reward for his prompt reporting of the matter to a responsible senior officer. How he had noticed and the Shinra recruiter hadn’t was a black mark to be blotted on the recruiter’s files for a day when Genesis was in charge of the paperwork. Along with any subsequent complaints from the recruiter. Sephiroth had enough to deal with without chasing after the baseline incompetence wafting about Heidegger’s department. 

Cloud Strife had no friends to speak of within Nibelheim, nor did he have any adult emotional support apart from his mother. His mother, who while aware of these issues, lacked the social status and monetary means to effectively hide any accidents that occurred to the other members of the town to curtail the behaviour. If Sephiroth surreptitiously sent a large sack of gil to Mrs Strife to remedy that problem, he certainly wasn’t about to tell anyone about it let alone her son who was apparently a fan of Sephiroth himself (which did explain a great deal about the selection of the sugar tongs).

Cloud Strife had fallen whole body into an extremely deep river of mako near the Nibelheim reactor. That was three months ago, not four years ago. He’d spent precisely seven days in a mild state of disorientation before proceeding to be chased out of the town for applying efficient monster management solutions to the surrounding monster population over the space of two weeks. If this caused a large number of the more brazen monster species to be categorised by the Science Department as endangered, then Strife could consider his work a job well done.

Nibelheim had a dragon problem. Mrs Strife used the word had, because one day the townsfolk had woken up to a row of them impaled on stripped trees and a trail of monster corpses leading up to the reactor and mansion respectively. Clearly, Strife’s improvisational techniques demonstrated within Shinra were not acquired while on Shinra property. A fact that left Sephiroth both thankful and apprehensive. Strife’s monster managerial skills required no set weapon, a fact that’d make both having Strife pick a weapon both more and less difficult, if only because in theory he’d be just as lethal with a teaspoon as he would be with a broadsword. His training supervisors were going to be absolutely thrilled.

In conclusion, Cloud Strife was a ten year old mako enhanced boy with no emotional connections to anyone to speak of and if anyone was at high risk of going mad and torching his surrounding environment, then it was going to be him. And now he was at Shinra, in close contact to individuals like Hojo whose presence would greatly accelerate that process. Strife wasn’t even old enough to enter the cadet program legally, but nor could Sephiroth return him to Nibelheim without a calamity wiping the town filled with country bumpkins off the map. 

Decision, decisions. What to do? To let the yokels burn or to intervene and maintain the assistance of Cadet Strife? Ultimately, it left Sephiroth with an unusual slab of paperwork entitled Guardianship of a Minor which Mrs Strife had helpfully suggested to him. It would both prevent Strife from being sent back to Nibelheim and allow Sephiroth to run interference with any proposals issued by Hojo that would prevent Sephiroth's paperwork from being completed in a timely manner.

For a moment Sephiroth allowed his mind to wander… to Hojo’s abject despair as he was rebuffed again and again due to Sephiroth’s new guardianship related responsibilities, to the cabal of frightened scientists forced to unclog the monster ridden plumbing of the SOLDIER floor, back to Hojo’s impotent rage as Sephiroth undertook duties not related to the extermination of other living beings… Of the light fading from Hojo’s eyes as his experiments were, one by one, mowed down by a small child that had nothing to do with Hojo’s efforts.

And Sephiroth signed the form with a flourish and tossed it into the express out tray. Yes, maybe it would have been better if Cadet Strife had been raised by Nibel Wolves instead of the townsfolk, but there was no way Sephiroth could do worse than country bumpkins who thought mako exposure caused children to sprout wings. At least Fair was around to help.

It was at that moment Cadet Strife skidded into Sephiroth’s office with what appeared to be the most perfectly made coffee Sephiroth had ever seen in his life.

“Ah Cadet, right on time, I have some papers for you to lodge with the Family Register.”

And if Strife objected to the paperwork, Sephiroth could say without a shred of deceit that it was his mother’s idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be some minor edits as soon as my groceries arrive. >>


	4. Actus Reus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As part of employment at Shinra, a rich selection of lifetime experiences were on offer.

It was all Zack could do not to twitch furiously under the contemplative gaze of Tseng. Instead of pelting after Cloud he’d been almost immediately intercepted by Tseng who was animated to say the least. Well, as animated as he could be while both of them were crammed into one of Science’s newly repurposed and reinforced janitorial closets. It’s almost like the tiny chairs crammed into the Turk’s “interview” room were designed as anti-SOLDIER implements. Seemed like that when Tseng had an identical seat may as well have been perched upon a gold encrusted throne. Man didn’t even twitch at the iron bar that had to be digging into his back. Not even when the door shuddered violently and a wet slathering growl hissed in from the gap at the bottom. What a professional.

“Repeat for me again, Zack,” and there was the first name terms again. Too friendly for a guy Zack had almost nothing to do with. “Where exactly was the cable you swung from?”

Zack obligingly pointed out on the floor diagram that had emerged from Tseng’s pocket. Propped against a mop still dripping a thick purple and black fluid. It wasn’t the best surface Zack had ever written on in the field. Angeal’s back was a more solid and flat surface appropriate for impromptu battle strategies, even when he was moving. “So I was here and Cloud was over here.” Zack drew two circles which had more resemblance to a chocobo than simple geometry. “And there was a huge amount of people between us.” Zack scribbled in thick lines for the solid block of secretarial staff that was more heavily armed phalanx than support staff. “And the cable was hanging here.” Zack made a dash. “So I took a run up and I grabbed and it… erm… I swung for the first part…then…” He made a motion. “Then halfway through the arc the cable dropped and I fell. Missed getting through the doors by an inch.” Zack hit the ground, rolled and was inches of diving into the closing doors. While the rest of the secretarial staff shrieked at Zack’s airborne prowess, Cloud’s limited expression was one of unchanging indifference. Until Zack bounced like tonberry struck by an irate Genesis’ boot and saw the kid wince. Zack had hope! The kid wasn’t the next coming of Sephiroth! He cared! “And, uh, yeah.”

“I see.” Tseng was a closed off guy, but Tseng also didn’t normally conduct interviews with a mug of coffee blacker than the depths of Hojo’s theoretically present soul while barricaded in a janitorial closet.

“Sooooo, I’m guessing the cable was a problem?” Gritting his teeth, Zack watched as Tseng sighed. “Normally we don’t get asked questions by Turks for minor property damage.”

It was one cable. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like they were stupid enough to wire the place in series… Right?

“Zack, ripping that cable took out all power to Hojo’s floors… and every single stasis chamber holding in his experiments,” Tseng, without a shred of dignity, held his head in his free hand. “The rest of the Department is currently barricaded in one of the reinforced surgical theatres they use for more… sensitive patients.” Sensitive patients like Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal, Zack could guess. If anyone was going to throttle a doc it was those three. And Cloud, but it’d be a cold day in hell before Cloud stopped running long enough to even make it onto Hojo’s tables.

After this foray, they could send Sephiroth himself after Cloud and Zack doubted the General would be anymore successful in capturing their new runaway chocobo than Zack’s own attempts. Well, Sephiroth could order Cloud to stop, but from Zack’s brief experience with the kid, he’d probably keep right on running while finding a way to obey the order.

“At least they’re safe?” Zack tentatively raised. The theatres were relatively big. Loads of space.

“Both Hollander and Hojo were undergoing separate surgeries for an… unspecified illness, when the rest of the Department chose to take shelter in the theatres.”

An unspecified illness that afflicted Science’s two most senior members and all of those poor people were trapped in a room with them with a literal mountain of experimental, mako enhanced monsters pounding against the door. Zack winced. “They’re screwed, aren’t they?”

“If the monsters don’t kill them, Hojo will.” Tseng casually sipped at his coffee. “Provided his throat ever regenerates enough to issue the order, but that’s someone else’s problem,” he added as an aside that would’ve had Zack scratching his head if the nearby mop hadn’t just hissed at him when he raised an arm near it. Nope. That was a very large nope. Zack wedged himself against the rattling door and its barricades. Tseng followed shortly after.

“Now what?” Zack cleared his throat, uncomfortably aware that he was the sole cause for Tseng’s misery.

“Now,” Tseng began with the air of someone awaiting root canal overseen by Genesis during a LOVELESS play, “we wait for General Sephiroth’s cadet to clear a gap in his busy schedule so that he can come and assist us.”

“What about Angeal or Genesis?” Zack felt hope flare.

“Occupied elsewhere, I’ve been led to believe.”

Then immediately go to die with the Science Department’s power supply.

“Uh, guys,” Spiky called out to both Cloud and Sephiroth’s lookalike. “Why are we delivering adoption papers for Sephiroth?” That didn’t sound right. Sephiroth was only six years older than Cloud. Who would he be adopting?

“Adoption papers?” Cloud mentally repeated, making sure he rustled his papers appropriately after he nodded at the red wolf/dog like creature who’d calmly entered the elevator as they passed Science’s floors.

Sephiroth’s lookalike blinked. Slowly. Carefully. “I have no recollection of ever needing to sign adoption papers for Shinra.”

Spiky snorted with enough force to truck a behemoth. “You also don’t seem to recall that we’ve spent decades trying to kill each, since you’re still here expecting me to be buddy buddy with you after murdering my entire family and town.” Cloud frowned and made a show of ruffling his papers more furiously. That wasn't new information, but it certainly was getting a lot of airtime up in Cloud's headspace. 

“My apologies, Cloud. Admittedly, after seeing the way they scapegoated you for the girl’s stupidity and her father’s lack of due diligence, I realise in hindsight that I should have let you do the honours.” The lookalike smirked. “After all, you did have to endure them for over a decade. It was only fair for you to light the fuse and I took that away from you.” Cloud could imagine the lookalike’s accompanying gesture of placation with a disturbing amount of clarity. If only because Spiky Cloud Two went out of his way to mock Sephiroth’s lookalike every time it happened. Spiky wasn’t a huge fan of the theatrics.

“Oh god, he spoke to my mother, didn’t he?” Spiky seemed to realise as the topic of Nibelheim floated to the surface. Cloud was doing his best not to give the game away. He really should’ve tuned out of this conversation by now, but those papers were sounding important…

“Only after encountering every single village idiot the town possessed before he managed to speak to Claudia,” the lookalike purred and Cloud struggled down a flinch as he felt Spiky’s spirit make contact with the side of the lookalike’s head before the two broke apart. “Don’t be like that Cloud, he thought that you and your mother must be saint’s for tolerating their behaviour for so long.”

“Please don’t tell me he actually liked speaking to my mother.”

“He was thrilled.”

“Shit.” Cloud could feel Spiky engage upon the closest thing to pacing a disembodied spirit could manage while within someone’s head. “Wait, is that Nanaki? What the hell is he doing here?” Nanaki? Who was Nanaki? Someone Spiky knew?

“Didn’t you meet him here in the first place, Cloud?” There was a careful note of condescension that Cloud was certain was deliberate. If only to piss Spiky off, Cloud was sure. Sephiroth’s lookalike really struggled in the social department, especially when Cloud slept and found the spirit hanging around far too closely to either himself or Spiky for him to be comfortable. It was then Spiky normally pulled a sword on him Cloud’s head almost literally rattled from the impacts.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t here this early. It’s way too early. What the hell did you do?” Spiky barked back and Cloud felt his attention snap back to the real world.

And for the first time his attention landed on the papers and the words written on them and he blanched.

Nanaki had entered the elevator expecting its blond occupant to leave. Instead the child glanced over his paperwork once, twice, three times, nodded in acknowledgement then went back to shuffling the papers with a paler face and a frown. Not that Nanaki was at all distressed by the conduct of the human boy as it was one less fight to escape the security that was currently laying siege to Hojo’s personal level of hell. It was rather refreshing to be treated like anyone else instead of a feral animal. Being abruptly grabbed in the middle of the night by Shinra’s monkey men had been unexpected (and oddly wrong feeling in more ways than one), but being freed all of two days after capture was an even more unlikely scenario. Yet here he was with the boy who glared at the papers with great personal affront and Nanaki could swear he saw them begin to wither and sweat from the intensity of the gaze. But… paper wasn’t alive was it? Or was it a quirk unique to Shinra? Nanaki wouldn’t doubt the capabilities of anything that escaped Hojo’s lab.

“Problems with the papers?” Nanaki asked before he could stop himself and stiffened. Humans didn’t tend to react well to anything non-human that spoke. At least not the ones beyond Cosmo Canyon.

The boy brusquely stuffed the papers under his arm and nodded with an extremely sour expression. “Yes, General Sephiroth didn’t fill out the surname component of this form. While signing for someone else as proxy is frowned upon for legal documents, he has a recording here listed as a record of assignment of rights under section 112 of the Family Matters Regulation.” Interesting. The child was a secretary of sorts?

Nanaki blinked. “I take it not having a surname name reduces the validity of the papers?” Not that Nanaki was ever likely to have such problems. Nanaki bounced his flaming tail deliberately in front of the boy who didn’t seem to care in the slightest about Nanaki’s non-human state of being. In fact, the boy was watching the fire on the end with what might’ve been fascination. How very odd.

The boy nodded again. “It can bring it into legal question which’ll waste time if we have to refile it with any correct names. We have enough paperwork to get through without problems with birth certificates.” The elevator came to a halt with a ding. “You getting off here?” So casual, as though he was speaking to a work colleague.

Well, strictly speaking, Nanaki shouldn’t leave elevators with strange humans as his grandfather had often warned, but this one was either extremely tolerant or oblivious or both. “Certainly, I will walk with you for a while. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m lost.”

“Don’t worry,” the boy offered in a sympathetic manner and Nanaki blinked at him. “Everyone gets lost the first few times. If they’re not lost then they’re in the air vents,” he sagely advised and they both stepped into the corridor together. Straight into the line of sight of a squad of heavily armed Shinra infantry. Nanaki froze. Of course they were looking for the escapees.

“Kid, step out of the way!” One of them barked, lifting his rifle and Nanaki’s hackles rose. If it was a fight they wanted…

“Nope,” and the boy tapped Nanaki on the shoulder while marching up to and shoving the infantryman out of the way with his other tiny hand. “We’re here on behalf of General Sephiroth,” and the boy lifted his helmet briefly and flashed a formal looking seal that immediately had the squad saluting in a form perfect manner. How very strange. Did the child outrank them as a secretary?

“Sorry, sir!” The now bright red trooper screamed in what had to be a peculiar show of respect between humans. “I didn’t realise you were here under orders!” Sir? Oh the boy definitely outranked them and at such a young age too. Shinra’s cruelty was truly without parallel. The boy had to be about ten. What on earth were they thinking to allow such a young boy into company as foul as this? Or perhaps it was because he was so young it was acceptable. “Or with company, sir!”

The boy gestured. “I’m Cadet Strife and this is Nanaki,” Strife waved between the parties. “I’d appreciate it if you’d spread the word so Nanaki isn’t harassed by anyone else.”

Nanaki paused mid step as Strife continued to explain the paperwork situation. Nanaki… But… They… they hadn’t exchanged names yet.

“If that’s all good enough for you, gentlemen?” Strife waved a hand.

“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir! We’ll be out of your way, sir!” And the squad parted around them and down the nearby stairwell entrance like a wave forced around the impassable edge of an extremely aggressive rock.

“Right, we shouldn’t have any more problems with Security thinking you’re an escaped experiment,” Strife nodded and presumably beckoned at Nanaki through his helmet.

Nanaki trembled. “I don’t recall ever telling you my name…” Nor were any members of Science even aware that Nanaki had a name beyond Hojo’s mutterings over unused designations. Not that Hojo had any time to choose one before the power went out.

“That’s okay,” the boy smiled, leaned down patted Nanaki on the shouder and he had the most awful sense that this conversation had happened once before. “The voices in my head told me about you,” Strife brightly explained and stepped away at an inhuman clip with a bounce in his step.

Sitting there, feeling his tail scorch itself into the floor, Nanaki slowly blinked. How. Why. What.

_The voices… in his head… told him my name…_

And Nanaki sprinted after the child who crossed uncanny amounts of distance with his tiny legs. If Nanaki wanted to know how the boy was hearing voices, then staying in his immediate vicinity was more advisable than consulting Hojo for it over tea. Grandfather had absolutely nothing for dealing with psychic human children, but at least Strife was thoughtful enough to reach for Nanaki’s shoulder instead of his head like he was some common mutt.

Strife might be an oddity, but at least he wasn’t Hojo.

Sephiroth should’ve been surprised when a red wolf creature and Zack Fair busted into his office at the exact same moment. The wolf creature pouncing over Zack’s shoulder as Zack fairly bodyslammed Sephiroth’s solid oak door clean off its hinges (if only Zack had been a day earlier maintenance wouldn’t have wasted their time oiling the hinges. What a shame.). The door keeled over with the sort of moan Sephiroth usually attributed to the higher swaying stacks that occupied his desk. Instead of disbelief, after a week and a half of Cadet Strife exisiting in the same building as him, it made the two visitors as a likely pair as anyone else who entered his office with some grievance. In fact, Cadet Strife’s arrival made such appearances a regularity. No longer being crushed by the weight of Shinra’s paper might, Cadet Strife deftly worked his way through it while Sephiroth fielded the many verbal complaints about Strife’s conduct which had replaced their paper forms. Namely as Strife flat out ignored dealing with the complaints while Sephiroth managed the far more easily resolved verbal followups. Usually while holding Masamune. The system worked.

Without his facial expression shifting, Sephiroth gestured at the seats. “Gentlemen…?” Sephiroth turned his eyes to the wolf like creature who nodded in assent to the assumption.

“Correct,” the wolf asserted and Sephiroth slowly blinked while turning his gaze to Zack.

“And Zack, I take it you’re here to explain why you had to clean up the disaster of the Science floors with no more than an extremely angry, possessed janitorial mop?” Sephiroth gently arched up an eyebrow. Why Zack hadn’t used his standard issue sword was beyond him.

“I didn’t! It was trying to kill me! I don’t know what the hell they were dealing with in the theatres, but they didn’t have shit on whatever the hell they used on that mop.” Surely Zack was exaggerating. “It melted my sword!”

“It was a mop, Zack.” Sephiroth reminded him. Mops didn’t melt swords… but this was Science… and… there was a history.

“With all due respect General, the mop sprouted wings. And teeth. And tentacles.” The wolf added. “If Cadet Strife hadn’t been passing by along with myself, it’s quite likely that Zack would’ve suffered grievous injuries.”

“Really.” Sephiroth clarified with no affect.

“It was sprouting eyes and shooting lasers at me and Tseng, sir. If Cloud hadn’t grabbed it and used it to beat the crap out of the other monsters nearby, it’d have sliced us all into very hot, ashy pieces. We had to send Tseng to get help. He brought back a bunch of Turks with him and the mop bailed on us.” Zack was waving his hands furiously and Sephiroth was beginning to feel the slightest edge of concern. Was Masamune immune to eye lasers? In all his years under Shinra’s employ, Sephiroth had never felt the need to reevaluate Masamune’s sturdiness… But if monsters were melting through steel now…

“The… mop… fled the scene of the monster attack,” Sephiroth dutifully repeated as he tore himself away from his thought experiment, wondering why Strife’s report had left out that the mop was an animate, mako enhanced super monster capable of melting steel. Perhaps he felt that the mop’s capabilities were a default assumption to make while his report was being read. It was Science after all.

“God, that’s not even the really bad part,” Zack groaned, nearly weeping while the wolf pawed at Zack’s hand in what might’ve been his species’ equivalent motion of sympathy.

Sephiroth was officially concerned.

“General Sephiroth,” the wolf creature began, taking one seat at Sephiroth’s desk while Zack practically fell into the other. “Are you aware that Cadet Strife has been hearing voices since his accident with the mako occurred? The voices informed him of my name before we made any such introductions and no one he's familiar with in Shinra should have access to such information.” Sephiroth nearly snapped his pen cleanly in half. Instead it buckled and strained under the force of his grip.

Strife. Hearing voices after a mako accident. Hearing voices after exposure to mako was an intense source of interest for Hojo and his ilk within the department. If they ever found that he was hearing voices of any kind…

Sephiroth swallowed an entirely inappropriate noise of mild distress. “Before we… undertake any investigations into Cadet Strife’s mental stability… Where exactly is the mop?” After Cadet Strife’s sugar tongs had managed to carve a path of ruin and excitement through the eager ranks the department as they scented the opportunity for advancement, it was better to be safe than sorry. At least until Strife needed to borrow the next tea related implement and the process repeated. Sephiroth felt as though that should be avoided for another month, lest the anyone else felt the need to investigate Cadet Strife’s… unique… state of being.

Zack and the the wolf creature exchanged a strained expression that Sephiroth was pleased to say that he could identify. They were anxious. Then he was immediately less pleased. “Cloud may or… may not have elected to keep the mop.”

Sephiroth blinked, feeling an irritating buzz at the back of his head that he forced away with a mental shove. “Explain.”

The wolf’s tail flicked. “He was using it carry paperwork between this floor and Tuesti’s office. Strife extolled the virtues of tentacles and carrying capacities.”

Sephiroth blinked again. “How is everyone not dead?”

Zack shrugged. “It apparently likes wing scratches, sir.” Zack frowned. “And hugs. Lots of hugs. It spent more time hugging him than carrying paperwork, so he started bribing it with hugs.”

“I feel as though this investigation into Cadet Strife’s mental state has immediately become a pressing matter,” Sephiroth concluded, fishing for a another form from the purring mass of papers that occupied Cadet Strife’s section of the desk. Sephiroth tried very hard not to think about the implications of his purring desk and its associated paperwork as he absentmindedly scratched one of its drawers and felt it shiver.

On the bright side, if Hojo ever attempted to take Cadet Strife into custody, Sephiroth and the rest of SOLDIER could observe from a safe distance while Hojo’s own janitorial supplies eviscerated him. It wasn’t quite formal notice, but Sephiroth was sure that Hojo’s own screams would be the next best thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I regret nothing. Apart from maybe Zack being in the same closet as the mop.


	5. Certiorari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All fields in the form must be filled before filing may proceed.

Reno blinked at the paperwork. Nope. That wasn’t right. That absolutely couldn’t be right. If this was the real deal Reno wouldn’t be finding it in the blackma- family relations audit pile. The Department of Administrative Research was on top of these things. Shit like this didn’t end up in some backwards low down secretary’s unread review pile (more like undead review pile). There was no way that this was here in this pile. It was too… too normal. Sephiroth was never this normal.

He doubled checked the name after waving the paperwork through the air. And it looked correct with one name, no surname, but it was the fact that the paperwork was here at all. Reno glared at it. Nothing changed. Still not right.

Chugging his coffee down, Reno’s vision clearly wasn’t getting any better because at this point it had to be him and not the paperwork. The words were still stubbornly there on the paper.

He poked the page with a pen. It hissed with a fluttering of pages and teeth and Reno hurriedly withdrew his pen.

Reno glanced over at Rude who was aggressively assessing a crossword from one of the rags he’d lifted off a secretarial desk.

“Yo, Rude.”

“Yes, Reno?”

“Is Sephiroth allowed to steal someone’s kid?”

Rude’s pen cautiously paused about halfway down the grid. “What definition of stealing are we using?”

“Company definition,” Reno smoothly assured him. No need to set off the apocalypse without a good reason.

“He’s got the paperwork filled out?” Rude was continuing to scratch his way down the crossroad.

“Affidavit filled out, an audio recording from the mother. Basically crossed off everything in the checklist I can think of for a kid… well, apart from a surname.” From a filing perspective, it was a work of art considering what normally left Sephiroth’s table and made its way over to the Turks. His handwriting in this application was surprisingly readable compared to his normal standards. Almost as if he was writing full words and not shorthand. Man, that kid was doing wonders for his time management.

“Are sixteen year olds allowed to adopt ten year olds?” Rude asked, almost absently, tapping the magazine.

The penny dropped.

Sephiroth was a juvenile.

Strife was a juvenile.

Strife had just been… adopted by another juvenile?

Where the hell was the boss?

“Shit.”

Reno was sprinting out the office before Rude was done stashing his crossword, Sephiroth’s paperwork spitting at him the whole time.

Angeal blinked from the doorway of the break room. He rubbed his eyes and blinked again. Cadet Strife was speaking to the break room’s microwave. Honest to god speaking to it, as if it was a person and not a kitchen appliance.

“Can you put that on for four minutes?” The microwave’s door closed with an enthusiastic clang and without so much as Strife’s hand on the numeral pad, the timer instantly shot up to four minutes. Strife made his way to the kitchenette’s opposite side where a lonely, heavily used toaster was the sole occupant.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. I know you’ve been having it rough down here since Science started borrowing you for their lunch,” Strife was… consoling… the metal box as he pulled out a loaf of bread from what appeared to be thin air. Angeal was not going to admit to any jealously, even if Strife had a secret bread stash that no one else had apparently found.

The microwave bounced ever so slightly. A slight ringing of metal on metal as two feet lifted from the counter and landed soundly, all the while it continued to cook. There was a pause, followed by it repeating the motion a further four more times. Repeated the motion with absolutely no contact from anything that wasn't the counter top. Angeal twitched.

Strife winced. “That bad, huh? I didn’t realise Science subsisted entirely off of oil instead of food. Explains the splatters. I’ll clean you out tomorrow, huh?”

The microwave bounced like an excited puppy. Angeal’s mind involuntarily drifted towards Zack and wondered if his mentee could… explain the situation. Perhaps explain why the microwave had developed sentience since Science’s Incident.

“There’s a good boy!” Strife… beamed(?) across the room. “Just another week and they’ll be gone. You can do it!” Another week until Science’s renovations restored basic human facilities back to their floors. Naturally, monster containment came first and the scientists themselves were somewhere below Hojo’s budget considerations, right beneath Hojo’s complete overhaul of the sector’s power grid.

Angeal was still hearing complaints from Tuesti’s men about the unnecessary amount of work it entailed. After all, it was Science who’d rewired the floors without telling Urban Planning and Urban Planning would be damned if they were taking on liability for Science’s meddling with their laboratories. Urban Planning also was already struggling with the gil they had and they weren’t about to pay for anyone else’s stuff ups. All comfortingly normal problems compared to-

-DING!

Exploding open, the microwave’s still boiling soup ejected itself from the box, with a steady guiding tentacle. Another tentacle snatched a plate from a cupboard and the steaming bowl of liquid was neatly deposited onto it near Strife with more grace than most humans handling red hot ceramics.

Angeal stared. Strife reached out and patted the tentacle. The tentacles patted him back. They retracted and once more there was a perfectly normal microwave. A perfectly normal microwave that…purred… when… a cadet…

“Oh thanks, you didn’t have to do that. You know, I wonder if-”

Angeal didn’t wait to hear the rest. Before the microwave could resume responding in whatever language it shared with Strife, Angeal was sprinting in the direction of Sephiroth’s office.

It was the duty of SOLDIER to eliminate monsters, but for how long had monsters been preparing their meals with no one the wiser? And how the hell had Strife discovered them and developed a means of communication with the monsters posing as the kitchenette's appliances?

And more importantly, why hadn’t it killed anyone yet when it was a monster? Angeal’s head buzzed unpleasantly, pounding with each footstep.

Aye, that wee lad was definitely on fire. Hopping frantically in an attempt to put out the blue flames. Lachlann Ferguson could’ve given more of a shit he supposed, eying off the carnage in front of him with the sort of attention he normally reserved for his scotch tasting sessions. But that wee lad was also Genesis Rhapsodos and Sergeant Ferguson would be damned if a single shit was directed towards the pompous bastard. If Commander Rhapsodos wanted to teach Cadet Strife’s class then he was Sergeant Ferguson’s most esteemed guest. Albeit one of those VIP guests that was a bit of a dick and everyone would grin and bear it until they were out of earshot. Being First Class, it was a fair distance until they could call him a dick, so the sergeant casually took a step back out of firing range until that became possible.

A step back straight into a solid object. The sergeant, pretending that nothing happened, casually sidestepped into a position at the side of the silver haired general.

“Is the Commander aware that Cadet Strife only carries mastered materia?” General Sephiroth’s vocal inflections left no doubt that he too thought Commander Rhapsodos was a bit of dick. Despite it only being their first direct interaction, the sergeant felt his respect soar upwards for the teenager. Clearly, the infantry weren’t the only ones who had a problem with the teenager’s attitude.

“No, sir. Commander Rhapsodos should’ve read the material I emailed to him about the skill level of the class and he’d have known about it before Strife set him on fire.” The material that outright stated that Strife was helping teach the class with his mastered materia, more than he was there as an actual student. Where that materia had come from was anyone’s guess, but none of it was reported stolen and with how liberally Strife used magic for everything, for all the sergeant knew Strife levelled his Fire materia brewing the general’s coffee every morning.

“This is a normal occurrence, then?” The general inclined his head, a silver eyebrow was wandering upwards, soon to be lost in the sprinkler system.

“Aye, sir. Only normally O’Riley’s the one on fire. Not terribly bright that one,” the sergeant helpfully added. “Do you think we should help the Commander?” He tried not to let his lack of enthusiasm for wading into the middle of the shiteshow appear too readily on his face. Unprofessionalism was only appropriate when no one could see it and the general’s eyesight had more in common with a hawk than the regulars.

“I wouldn’t dream of intervening in the Commander’s heroic aspirations, Sergeant.” The general was so earnest that the sergeant might have believed him if it wasn’t for the beginnings of a shite eating smirk marching its way across the general’s face.

“Least his pants are still on, sir. God only knows that if he lost half of them that his fan club would be marching up here wondering who died with the half mast flying so freely,” slipped from the sergeant’s lips. Shite. That was too blunt.

The general breathed out, long and deep. “I would at least hope for some warning beforehand, sergeant. Wutai’s assaults pale in comparison to the efforts of the fan clubs.” As soon as the general had it together, he turned to the sergeant, face finally clear of any inappropriate glee. “As you were, sergeant.”

Sephiroth stepped away and before the commander could spot him going, the sergeant saw a red coat go flying through the air as the bug eyed brat realised that no water was forthcoming. Finally the sprog had realised that he could ditch the offending article of clothing instead of rolling around like a chocobo with a Bomb wedged up its arse. The only thing saving the commander’s dignity was that the rest of the class had fled the training room the moment they realised Strife was using Fire materia. Smart lads.

Strife was standing at attention as the sergeant approached and saluted promptly.“Sir!” Strife saluted. “I didn’t realise that Commander Rhapsodos thought I would be using low level materia, sir!” Both of them knew that Strife definitely could cast Water if he really needed to, but after the way the commander had treated the class the sergeant was sure that Strife had forgotten that detail. In all innocence of course, naturally.

Sergeant Ferguson waved a hand. “At ease, cadet. Commander Rhapsodos should’ve read the briefing I sent him for this class and he’d have been well aware that we weren’t using wee baby materia.” Leering, he addressed the next statement to the commander. “So Commander, next time you join my class, you’ll be sure to read the attached paperwork first, aye?”

Instead of a spoken response, there was only a dull groan that had the sergeant shaking his head. Even O’Riley managed to fart out a response after Strife used him as a flare to illuminate their night training sessions.

“Head down, arse up lad. You’re hardly the first person Cadet Strife's torched,” the sergeant nodded at the scorched, coatless commander. “Strife, healing materia.”

“Yes, sir!”

And if the security footage of the incident just so happened to leak to the fan clubs, then there was nothing the sergeant could do about it in the long run. There was no point in wasting valuable training data and if the cadets didn’t handle their learning materials correctly, then it wasn’t really his problem.

It was the calm before the storm. His office was never this quiet or peaceful. Sephiroth’s desk was blissfully empty. Not a file or paper to be seen on its newly buffed and crumb free surface. It grumbled contently as Sephiroth scratched at a drawer handle while contemplating lunch. Lunch that Cadet Strife was braving the corridors for, even though he was but a fraction of the size of everyone else and at a hypothetical risk of being trampled. Statistically speaking, Cadet Strife was far more likely to trample them in his attempt to bring back filet mignon before it became cold. If only everyone else at Shinra was so committed to their work.

No, it was far too peaceful.

It was only a matter of time before the Turks realised that Sephiroth’s paperwork was sans a surname and the filing was invalid as Cadet Strife had indicated. Sephiroth only had a thirty day window with which he could correct the matter before he was forced to refile to remedy the defect. Refiling would attract far more attention to Cadet Strife’s… unique… situation than Sephiroth was willing to expose to the executives or Hojo. Strife, after infiltrating Science’s archives, already had an indicator for where Sephiroth’s birth records were to be found and they weren't held in Midgar. The quaint hole in the fabric of society known as Nibelheim was recorded as the first location for Sephiroth prior to his transit to Midgar and Sephiroth had felt his pen dangerously flex at the revelation. Strife has also made mention of a notation relating to a “living record” being stored at the mansion in Nibelheim which had only exacerbated the strain of Sephiroth’s much abused pen.

Given Strife’s… exceptional state of being… it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that all research hadn’t ceased at Nibelheim following Sephiroth’s birth. If Sephiroth was a result of… Science’s meddling according to the cadet’s discovery, then surely there would be others involved in their procedures. Others like Cadet Cloud Strife himself perhaps and Sephiroth found himself gritting his teeth more at the thought of dealing with the locals than he did any discovery of illicit human experimentation.

Of all the places, it had to be _Nibelheim_. Maybe Cadet Strife wouldn’t object to an accident involving a Fire materia or a summon occurring as they left… Providing Claudia Strife was of course fully packed and ready to leave at the same time, naturally. To not do so was a level of cruelty Sephiroth would attribute to-

-BOOM.

Right on schedule, Sephiroth’s newly reattached door exploded off its hinges in a cloud of debris and a sea of people surged into the office. Angeal, Genesis, Tseng and Zack flailed in a tangle of limbs before orienting themselves in a rough order of most aggrieved to least aggrieved. It was no surprise to Sephiroth that Genesis, still covered in a layer of black soot and sans his customary coat, was at the front of the queue. Sephiroth did his best to at least feign some degree of surprise.

Sephiroth also made a mental note to contact maintenance before he left.

“Excellent, you’re all here,” Sephiroth began before a single complaint could fill the air. “This is easier than lodging notice.” Not that Sephiroth was going to bother with lodging notice as the paperwork that entailed was more extensive than anything that’d crossed Sephiroth’s desk in living memory.

“What? What do you mean we’re all here?” Genesis snapped and Sephiroth did his best not to inhale the scent of scorched flesh that wafted over. Sephiroth would have to offer Strife a quiet raise to his allowance.

“Notice? Notice for what, Sephiroth?” Angeal’s face was bouncing between mortification and confusion.

“You’re not retiring, are you?” Zack unceremoniously shoved Genesis out the way as he fought his way to the front of the queue.

“I’d certainly hope not, there is some paperwork that we urgently have to resolve before any such options might be considered,” Tseng added from the back of the pack. Tseng who had finally found the paperwork. How fortunate that Cadet Strife had a plan.

“This is a more pressing concern. Cadet Strife has notified me that my filing of all Shinra related matters is likely to be invalid until the legalities surrounding my surname have been clarified,” Sephiroth smoothly interjected. “Since I have not been signing with a surname as the forms require, certain problems have arisen.” Or would arise as far as custody of Strife was concerned. He was too valuable to be lost to Hojo or his hillbilly town in some inane Shinra loophole.

“Wait, what?” Angeal did a double take. “Does that mean the requisition forms…?” Sephiroth certainly wasn’t about to correct any horrified assumptions about requisition forms.

“Technically invalid,” Sephiroth asserted and watched the blood drain from Tseng’s face. Oh Tseng knew exactly what monstrosities would emerge if Sephiroth had to refile anything under altered criteria. “As such, due to Science’s lack of cooperation and competence, I will be attending an administrative retreat in Nibelheim with Cadet Strife as we attempt to divine Science’s inability to lodge birth certificates correctly.”

At that precise moment, Cadet Strife skidded into the office and the delicious scent of filet mignon washed over them.

“Sir…?”

“Gentlemen, let’s discuss this after lunch.”

Sephiroth's contempt for the Board didn't prevent him from appropriating their stall tactics as was required, especially since Cadet Strife was not yet aware of their hastily scheduled trip to his hometown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two months since this was last updated. Apologies!


	6. A Posteriori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hindsight is a wonderful and terrible thing.

“We’ll be departing as soon as possible a… trip to _Nibelheim_ ,” resounded through all three of the people occupying Cloud’s head. Sephiroth’s head was bowed over his nearly empty desk as his pen zoomed through an unmistakable last minute request form. Cloud would’ve withheld an extremely inappropriate noise of pride if his vocal cords hadn’t abruptly spasmed into silence.

“I’m sorry, sir, we’re going where?” Cloud wasn’t sure which one of them was even asking at this point. As far as speaking priority went, a tsunami of crabs was attempting to death match their way out of a bucket possessing only one exit. He could only assume from the shrill warble that left his mouth that he’d made it to the exit first and personally managed the words. Spiky was a close second with a strangled noise of ambient distress.

Sephiroth sighed. Honest to god _sighed_. And Cloud could’ve sworn he heard an echo. “Yes, Cadet, _Nibelheim_ ,” Sephiroth hissed with such vehemence that Cloud saw a small stack of preparatory paperwork eject itself sideways from the desk to avoid the General. “Where Shinra in all of their infinite wisdom have elected to store my birth records.” Cloud pretended not to notice Sephiroth’s fingers twitching in the direction of Masamune. “I will do my best to refrain from any operational incidents within the town, but my patience has its limits.”

Cloud scratched his head. “I wasn’t aware that you had so much experience with the town, sir.” As far as his two passengers were concerned, Sephiroth at this point in the timeline hadn’t known Nibelheim existed let alone had such a furious, consuming malice towards it… not until after he’d gone crazy, then he’d torched the place with glee. After Cloud’s personal experience with the villagers following monster extermination, Spiky himself was nominally less inclined to be surprised by the behaviour.

“The phone call I had with the various… _residents_ ,” Sephiroth slowly enunciated, as though he was thinking of a different phrasing, “in the attempt to find your mother was more than enough to explain your current state of being.” Yeah, that did sound like Cloud’s first ten years there and he felt Spiky’s defeated nod. “I can only hope both of your parents were spared from whatever contaminants are in the town’s water supply.” It was all Cloud could do to swallow his snort before his mask of professionalism came crashing down around him.

“I can’t speak for my father, sir, since I’ve never met him. Mum said he died in the war, but didn’t say much else.” Cloud peaked inwards.

 _Don’t look at me_ , Spiky’s voice whispered back. _I got the same story you did._

_You never looked into it?_

_Who cares? He didn’t mean anything to me anyway._

_Clearly he meant something_ , Sephiroth’s lookalike murmured, _when none of Hojo’s other subjects ever recovered from the experiments the same way you did and nor was anyone else as successful. You were different before Hojo’s intervention._

Cloud heard Spiky’s indignant squawk and the metallic swing of a sword cutting through his mind and frowned in spite of himself.

“Cadet?” The General’s voice floated back into Cloud’s awareness.

“Sir, I was just thinking…” He allowed himself to openly cringe, because there was a point and everyone in Cloud’s head knew what was in the mako supply if not the water supply. “What if there is something in the water and what if we all drank it?” Could it be that the town itself was contaminated with Jenova’s influence? There was so many open pools around and Spiky said she was directly connected to the reactor. Between Hojo and Sephiroth, none of the residents who’d survived were in a position to have given Spiky that type of information. Sephiroth’s lookalike was also already happily cutting down his own clones, so him targeting the town wasn’t much of an indication as to whether or not there was anything wrong with the mako or water supply.

There was a moment of silence that Cloud would’ve called horrified if it wasn’t for Sephiroth’s speculative expression that did nothing to ease his growing sense of apprehension.

 _Well, Jenova is being held in containment nearby_ , Spiky noted. _I can’t see how she can be dunked in mako which is in direct contact with the groundwater and not have contaminated the town’s drinking water._ Spiky’s comment was reinforced by a mild noise of acknowledgement from the other occupant.

Finally a reply, with Sephiroth coming to his feet and reaching for Masamune. “Don’t stress yourself overly with our visit, Cadet.” The hair on the back of Cloud’s neck stood up. “If all else fails we can extract your mother, torch the place and pretend it was a reactor accident if anyone asks. With Shinra’s inability to maintain a basic bureaucracy for birth and deaths, I strongly doubt anyone would question a proposed cause of missed reactor maintenance.”

Spiky’s spiritual jaw dropped, Sephiroth’s lookalike blinked incredulously, and Cloud himself couldn’t help but think that maybe his influence had done far more than simply free Sephiroth from his desk.

Angeal eyed his "assistant". His “assistant” eyed him back, blinking with confusion in all nine of its eyes.

“Genesis… this can’t be right,” Angeal mumbled in an undertone, acutely aware that it could hear every word in that room no matter the tone and likely every word from five storeys away. Their duty as SOLDIER was to purge the world of monsters, not… not use one for for organisational tasks. Though Sephiroth and his cadet seemed to have missed the memo, with a red wolf like creature eying Angeal from the corner of the room. It yawned hugely and sunk into a mint coloured plush cushion. Angeal shuddered.

“It’s Sephiroth’s instructions, Angeal, and since he’s been clearlng his paperwork with record time then it can’t hurt if we borrow his assistant for the weeks that he’s gone.” Genesis’ dramatic flourish did absolutely nothing to persuade Angeal. “It’s not like he’ll come back and complain at the lack of a bank up.”

“It’s a tainted mop, Genesis,” Angeal repeated for the sixth time. The mop waved several tentacles lazily in his direction and Angeal took a step backwards. “Who knows what foulness it’s capable of?” A monster tied directly to whatever sick experiments Hojo had been engaged with, if Tseng’s report of a sickly, glowing purple ooze was to be believed. Angeal couldn’t even think of a creature he’d dealt with that had glowing purple secretions, let alone the sort capable of mutating an inanimate object.

“And? I’ve been having the microwave in the break room help me with the Third Class accounting. What’s the problem?” Both Angeal and the mop turned to stare as Genesis paged through LOVELESS.

“You what?” This wasn’t happening. Genesis must’ve lost his mind.

“Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess. I’m not going to say no to any offered assistance. It’s not as though the Director’s been able to source funding for a competent bureaucracy and the less time we spend doing paperwork, the more time we spend on heroics.” Genesis slashed a hand through the air as if that settled the matter.

“Genesis. It's a microwave. With tentacles.” Angeal slowly enunciated, as though he was speaking to a very small child. “It can’t possibly have any knowledge of accounting.” His friend had gone mad.

Genesis gave a winning smile. “Ah, but my friend, you’re wrong. For you see, that microwave was located in the break room of the Turks’ accounting department before your puppy commandeered it for our general break room. It is fully qualified in the art of forensic accounting, if not audible speech.” Genesis smirked. “I rest my case.”

“Commander Rhapsodos is correct,” the wolf gruffly yawned from behind him. “You’ll find Fluffy, Max and Spot to be of excellent assistance in completing General Sephiroth’s backlog. Cadet Strife speaks highly of their contributions to this office.”

Angeal felt his soul well with crushing betrayal at what Zack had unleashed upon them all in his desire to spare his fellow SOLDIERs from trudging to a different floor for cup noodles.

Cadet Strife’s mop sympathetically patted Angeal on the back with four different, feathery tentacles and he didn’t have the heart to shove it away.

Then he realised the wolf had mentioned a third name.

Rufus Shinra drank deeply from his coffee cup. “Gentlemen, is there any explanation for… this.” Rufus directed his spare hand towards their hastily acquired conference room which had been obliterated with tape, pieces of paper and red string that hung haphazardly from the walls.

Rude coughed. Reno shrugged. Tseng was clearly reconsidering his life choices.

Tseng stood at attention. “Sir, while we were investigating Hojo and Hollander’s… regretful conditions regarding the sugar tongs, we discovered a source of interdepartmental conflict between SOLDIER and Science.” A photo of a blond haired boy that had to be ten years of age or younger was handed to Rufus. “This is Cadet Cloud Strife. Recently he came to the direct attention of General Sephiroth after his creative solution to hazing by his fellow cadets.”

“And I presume he’s the cause of this source of conflict?” It wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened, though never with an individual so young. Usually they had little to do with politics and would quietly disappear off into the arms of Science.

“By all accounts, sir, Cadet Strife is General Sephiroth’s right hand man for all secretarial matters.” Tseng gestured towards a remarkably high resolution still of Sephiroth punching out one of Hojo’s assistants, a halo of hair obscuring the man’s expression, while a hand pulled Strife out from out of arm’s reach. “This image shows one of Hojo’s men attempting to request samples from Cadet Strife and the General’s response. The General is rather… proprietary when it comes to the cadet and his throughput has greatly increased since Strife’s employment by the company.” A miraculous answer to all of Sephiroth’s paper related woes would certainly explain the teenager’s newly found possessiveness. But Hojo on the other hand…

Rufus perked up. “Why does Hojo want samples from a ten year old boy engaged in secretarial work?” Now that… that was interesting. What was different about this one?

“Cadet Strife suffered a mako related accident where he was submerged in a pool back in his hometown of Nibelheim. He made an unprecedented recovery and promptly purged the locale of all major monster threats before making his way here to Nibelheim, according to the residents.” That'd do it. Oh yes, Hojo would definitely be interested in that series of events. No one recovered from mako poisoning. No one. Of course Cloud Strife would be interesting as an anomaly himself. What made him capable of recovering from such high doses when others succumbed to far less? The boy was a medical miracle. 

“I fail to see how this presents a long term problem, Tseng.” Rufus drummed his fingers on his desk. “Sephiroth can’t run defence for the cadet forever.” Eventually, Sephiroth would have to move on with other tasks and Hojo would gain access to the samples he desired.

Reno’s own cough escalated into hacking sound. “Erm, sir… General Sephiroth just adopted the kid and there isn’t a single company policy to stop him from doing it as soon as he corrects the missing field on the adoption document. And, ah, they’re in Nibelheim doing that right now.” 

Rufus set his coffee cup down with a sharp CLACK. “Oh?” A wave of irritation washed over Rufus.

“And, sir, it also seems like Cadet Strife himself accidentally tainted Hojo’s sugar tongs while putting down some monsters that escaped from Science. He’s singlehandedly reduced the department’s spending by three hundred percent.” And that wave of irritation was swiftly blasted away the fresh scent of opportunity. That? That changed _everything_.

“Tseng,” Rufus slowly began, thinking of how much Science’s spending had dropped with both Hollander and Hojo out of commission. “I think we need to discuss providing a raise for our newest, star employee.”

“Of course sir.”

And, naturally, investigating if the Cadet would enjoy a more… elevated form of employment within the company.

Cadet Strife was no mere mortal. Never had Sephiroth ever witnessed an individual capable of completing high level logistics papers while being subject to a logistic process themselves. Crammed into the back of the truck, Strife’s handwriting remained unchanged through every bump, monster and Shinra insurance agent the truck careened over on their journey from Junon. Even for all of Shinra’s claims about Sephiroth’s so called flawlessness, he would’ve been hard pressed to match Cadet Strife’s rejection of reality as it applied to his mobile office. In the world of Cadet Strife, he hadn’t left Midgar, nor his comfortable chair at the side of Sephiroth’s desk. A skill to be envied.

They had packed, left, made it to Junon and then their transport in such record time that Sephiroth was left questioning why the Turks held a monopoly on the dispatch of helicopters. Clearly, when air travel wasn’t required for access, Cadet Strife’s pathfinding capabilities that cut through all manner of (formerly occupied) monster dens were the superior option for troop mobility. Not that the trooper driving was so confident.

“Uh sir, doesn’t the Midgar Zolom live here?”

“Nope, not anymore. Had an unfortunate meeting with a tree.”

“The Ark Dragons in the mine?”

“They’re gone too. Population won’t recover for five or so years I reckon.”

“And that random chocobo you dove out the vehicle for?”

“It wasn’t a random chocobo,” Strife had indignantly answered, as through the trooper had offended Strife’s mother. “It was clearly an A rank. Those generally don’t appear outside of the Northern Continent, so I don’t know how it got here, but I’ll take it anyway for breeding stock.”

Sephiroth was more concerned with Strife’s intimate knowledge of chocobo breeding practices than he was by Strife boarding the truck mid journey. He dived off from the moving bird’s back and landed in a neat tumble within the truck's interior. With the amount courier work the cadet did around the building, Strife being able to traverse so easily was to be expected. Him carrying a fully mastered Chocobo Lure and Sense materia on him at all times for the express purpose of spotting a well bred chocobo was something else entirely. Then again, perhaps the cadet felt a certain kinship with the yellow animals, on account of his own preferred hairstyle.

Unfortunately, none of Strife’s apparent enthusiasm could conceal what had to be the worst case of anxiety Sephiroth had seen since a baby Malboro absconded with Genesis’ season opening tickets to LOVELESS. If Genesis’ mad frenzy to chase the tiny monster down had been relentless, then Cadet Strife’s own sense of impending doom was being channelled entirely into making sure it was being used as efficiently ss possible. An absolute marvel, but it was anxiety nonetheless and Cloud Strife hadn’t been anxious once in the duration of his employment with Shinra. That was after numerous attempts on his life and repeated visits from Hojo’s lab assistants, so this… this was new.

Strife’s concerns with whatever resided in Nibelheim clearly went well beyond a mere dispute with the townsfolk. Facing down hordes of Hojo’s augmented pet monsters with various secretarial implements as Strife went about his duties did little to faze him, which made this a noticeable instance of discomfort. It was for the best they had this conversation now, before they were in a hillbilly laden cesspool with eyes for walls, where whatever gossip the locals could scrape together would act as currency for the next three years.

“Cadet.”

“Yes, sir?” Strife peered over his rapidly diminishing stack of papers. It wouldn’t be too much longer now before the stockpile was depleted and Sephiroth would send the troopers on arrival to fetch more from the nearest outpost as Strife had priorly arranged. Angeal and Genesis might have claimed to be Sephiroth’s friends, but Cadet Strife’s dedication to staying on top of paperwork in the face adversity swiftly refuted that claim. Genesis never helped Sephiroth with paperwork once and nor had Angeal.

“Why are you really concerned about returning to Nibelheim? It’s clear that this extends beyond a dispute with the residents.” Even if Strife’s efficient approach to monster control inspired apprehension, Strife was hardly at risk of any meaningful retaliation. If the boy could impale an entire population of dragons on the surrounding plant life, then the community itself would hardly fair any better.

The cadet observed him, then with a sigh, set his papers aside and Sephiroth felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was a momentous event for the cadet’s facial expression to twitch let alone for the boy to sigh. “Sir, when I said there was something in the water, I wasn’t joking.” Sephiroth’s optimism, floating alongside him in metaphorical form since they’d left was machine gunned from the sky with a chilling scream.

“Your reasoning for this deduction?” Strife was no doubt capable of collating a forty-nine page report on his concerns.

“After I fell into the mako I started hearing voices,” boy began with a frown and Sephiroth withheld an urge to twitch. “Some of them are okay… they fight and argue about who killed who’s entire family and I can handle that, but there was a female voice that wasn’t like the others that was… weird.” Sephiroth merely blinked as slowly as possible.

Deep breaths. Sephiroth could handle a ten year old suffering from mako related hallucinations. He could handle Genesis reciting every known line of LOVELESS at 3am on Wutai’s frontline and, after that experience, was capable of handling anything. “And what exactly did it say to you?”

“She said that she was my mother, sir.” The sheer wrongness of the statement flowed over the general and coalesced into the vision of an extremely affronted Claudia Strife. Sephiroth could only imagine the outrage of the woman at being told a disembodied voice was attempting to commandeer her son. At least Sephiroth had asked for permission and filled out the requisite paperwork before expecting the woman to hand over her child.

Instead, Sephiroth paused. “But I’ve spoken to your mother and expect will meet with her upon arrival.” Then they’d bunk down at the inn while they looked over the plans to ensure that Shinra Mansion didn’t have any surprise monster nests that Sephiroth had to clean out before the cadet ripped through the paperwork within.

“Precisely, sir. Whatever the hell I heard was definitely not my mother.” The cadet hesitated. “And sir, not to be presumptuous, but since you’re the only other person here with mako enhancements… if you hear her, I doubt she’s your mother either. If she was lying to me then she’s definitely lying to you.”

Realisation swept across Sephiroth. Strife wasn’t worried about himself… he was worried about introducing other susceptible people to the anomaly and them being driven mad by the whispers of the creature. It was Sephiroth’s own attendance to the town that concerned the boy, not his own personal wellbeing. Sephiroth neatly slotted the resulting warm and fuzzy emotion away for later observations.

“I take it this is the real reason for why you left Nibelheim?” And fled to close to the opposite side of the world to escape its influence.

“Yessir.”

“Your concerns are noted, Cadet. I’m sure we can... remedy the problem prior to leaving the town.” Sephiroth rested a hand on the hilt of his blade and fished out Phoenix’s summon materia.

Cadet Strife’s eyes widened as the materia came into sight and a thought popped into Sephiroth’s mind with outstanding clarity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead. Yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Move along, nothing to see here.
> 
> If anyone wants to have a gab at what else we do, please check out our blog: https://davidschmellingart.blogspot.com/2021/01/howl-joined-food-for-crows-team.html


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